1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of free or pay computer-controlled games, either games of skills or games of chance.
2. Copyright Notice/Permission
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. The following notice applies to the software and data as described below and in the drawings hereto: Copyright 2004, Cyberscan Technology Inc., All Rights Reserved.
3. Description of the Related Art
The vast majority of computer games of chance and table games such as found in casinos are based on, or directly derived from, fruit slot machines, poker slot machines, roulette, poker (table and slot) and wheel of fortune. Fruit machines are shifting to “character” fruit machines in which the fruits are replaced with well-known characters portrayed in movies, cartoons or TV series. Fruits are also replaced with various familiar objects such as dice as well as animals. Multi-line fruit-type machines are quickly replacing basic fruit-type machines as they offer a richer play to the player. Basic video poker machines are also evolving to offer more intricate combinations of bets to satisfy more sophisticated players.
Interestingly, highly sophisticated Gameboy®, Playstation®, Sega®, Xbox® and shoot-'em-up type games have not made any in-road into the game of chance arena. Consequently, no new successful “killer” game appears to have been introduced in the game of chance arena in a long time.